Twitter Adds Commerce; A Wary Eye On RTB

Many publishers these days are thinking about commerce to add to their advertising and content strategies. Twitter is no different as yesterday the ever-enterprising American Express announced a new partnership with the popular micro-blogging service. The Wall Street Journal's Shira Ovide explains, "American Express card holders who connect their card numbers to their Twitter accounts can post on Twitter to trigger a purchase of select products (...). The program will roll out over the next few days." The particulars of the use case aside, presumably Twitter gets a percentage of the transaction. Read more (subscription). Twitter just added a bottom-of-the-funnel, intent data stream. Retargeters, right this way!

A Wary Eye On RTB

Mail Online, the mostly independent digital sibling of the UK tabloid, The Daily Mail, is positioning itself as more of a global news site and has the traffic to back up that goal (comScore says it has monthly traffic of 50 million uniques, higher than the NYTimes.com). With such a huge audience and hundreds of posts a day, this site would be tailor-made for the power of real-time bidding, right? CRO Rich Sutton isn’t so sure. “On the one hand, you can’t fight city hall,” he tells Digiday's Brian Morrissey. “There aren’t a ton of case studies on the efficacy of RTB. It’s more efficient, it delivers more for less cost per thousand, but the jury is out about how effective it is for brands.” Read more.

More On Twitter API

There’s been much talk lately about potential new ad products from Twitter, including an RTB Exchange (AdExchanger story) and, more definitively, an Advertising API (TechCrunch report). AdWeek has more on the API plans, saying the product will be based initially around Promoted Tweets -- not Promoted Trends or Accounts. “An Ad API could be a double-edged sword for Twitter. The company has been extremely careful in limiting ads running in users' streams and ensuring those displayed generate positive feedback from users otherwise they get pulled.” Timing for the Ad API is later this quarter. More.

EU Data Fears, U.S. Lobbying

The European Union is continuing to look for ways to tighten regulations around consumer privacy and ad targeting and Computer World UK’s Glyn Moody is expressing dismay that U.S. lobbyists aren’t just influencing the process, they appear to be writing the laws word-for-word. But Moody does see how readily accessible data can be used to turn the tables on lawmakers who are taking dictation. “Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, and the rise of open data that sees all kinds of information made available, it is now possible to piece together a much clearer picture of what exactly our EU representatives are up to,” Moody says. Read the rest.

Mobile Exit-er

It looks like Metaresolver CEO Seamus McAteer is about to sell his second mobile ad startup. AdAge reports Millennial Media is close to buying the company, which sells itself as a “clean data” source for programmatic mobile ad buying. McAteer previously sold mobile analytics play M:Metrics to comScore. Metaresolver is less than a year old. More.

Going Multi-channel (Omnichannel?)

NBC is trying to make its frat boy cable TV outpost, G4, more upscale, so it is rebranding the channel as The Esquire Network, as in the Hearst Magazine title. Aside from cable, the Esquire Network brand will include web, mobile and social experiences that link to the main magazine site, with plans for original web series, apps and TV Everywhere and on-demand access, AdAge’s Jennifer Poggi reports. "We are closely tied to its success," said David Carey, president of Esquire parent Hearst Magazines, in an email. "We'll be promoting the Esquire Network across all the relevant properties in the Hearst stable." Read more.

80/20 Reach

Nielsen’s Global Head of Advertiser Solutions, Randall Beard, takes Nielsen Wire blog readers on a review of “Reach” in the world of television. It would seem his musings resonate online, too. The 80/20 rule is in effect as he notes that 20% of viewers are “light viewers” - how to reach the people that rarely watch. He writes, “Light viewers tend to be younger, more affluent, better educated and working outside the home. (...) They watch more cable, watch programming at different hours, use DVRs, stream content online, etc. (/...) Current media planning tools don’t do a very good job of constructing plans to reach these people. That’s why TV media plans often end up with approximately 80 percent reach—no matter how much they spend.” Read more.